Center for Trade Union and Human Rights

Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR)

National Coalition for the Protection of Workers' Rights (NCPWR)

Rm 702 Culmat Building,127 E. Rodriguez Sr. Ave., Quezon City

Joint Statement

March 31, 2005

Eliminating Activists: A Patent State Terrorism

In this time where prices of everything have gone up, the lives of human rights advocates and activists appear to be much cheaper? Everyday, we are disturbed by the nagging questions: Who’s next in the list? Where will the hungry Filipinos grip for a lifeline when the ones reaching out to them are put into grave?

Each day, the number of people and families grieving and angry on the brutal slaying of their loved ones grows but their yells are drowned in the silence of people scurrying to survive from onslaught of price increases. Voices are silenced as outspoken journalists `perhaps deem as threat’ are killed and people are bombarded by disinformation and propaganda that the only way to bringing this country out of economic mess is to approve the VAT and eliminate terrorism by approving the Anti-Terrorism Bill and the National ID system.

CTUHR and NCPWR believe that terrorism must indeed be condemned and fought against. But to kill the people who had been absolutely vocal against state and capitalists’ forces assaulting hapless and dying workers, is not fighting terrorism. To kill workers and peasants organizers and human rights advocates and to speak about the truth why our battered nation remains in dire poverty, is not a work towards industrial or agrarian peace. It is terrorism, nothing less.

Wounds of the November 16 massacre in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City, for instance are still fresh. Yet, supporters and advocates of striking workers were killed one after the other. Marcelino Beltran, chair of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid ng Tarlac and vice-president of Anakpawis-Tarlac,-- and was a primary witness to the massacre was murdered at the height of the so-called investigation. No one was arrested for his murder.

Another peasant Felino Briones from Victoria, Tarlac followed. Then in January, two striking HLI workers manning the picketline nearly died when two unknown men fired at them. This month, Bayan Muna member and Tarlac City councilor Abelardo Ladera was also killed, and ten days later, Fr. William Tadena of Iglesia Filipina Independiente lost his life too from gunshots of probably the same or same group of assassins. Councilor Ladera and Fr. Tadena were both vocal advocates and active supporters of striking workers of Hacienda Luisita. Nothing was heard from Malacanang or from the Cojuangco family, except for standard statements that the incidents will be investigated. Until today, no one was made to answer for these heinous crimes.

In the midst of killings in Central Luzon for instance, police and military remarked that the killings could have been a handiwork of vigilantes. There were also statements that the Left should be blamed for the killing of their own members, to fire the anger and discredit the military as well as the current administration. The statements created more questions rather than clarifications. For one, what benefit would the striking workers of Hacienda Luisita, and even the Left for instance, get by killing their own supporters and members? In the political history of this country, who has the capacity to form and arm vigilante groups? Recall, will point to the experiences that it is the state that has the capacity to do that.

All these are happening without the Anti-Terrorism Bill and without the national ID system. How much more, once the bill is passed and implemented? These proposed measures will certainly bring us back to a formal declaration of Martial Law.

We therefore reiterate that we condemn in the strongest term the series of killings and the seemingly systematic measures of eliminating activists. We demand justice for the victims. If all these killings were meant to silence activists and government critics or to warn others threading the path of activism to abandon their cause, or to justify a much tougher counter-terrorism measures, then the government is completely wrong. It is plain rubbing salt to wounded and battered bodies and soul of the people. It will not pacify discontentment, on the contrary, when silence from shocks is overcome, killings will inflame the fire of dissatisfaction over the government’s failure to deliver the poor majority from oppressive hunger and exploitation. The people are thinking now.

So, stop the killings! Stop political repression! Justice to the victims!

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